NYS Announces Paid Family Leave

New York employees will be eligible for paid leave to care for family
members under the new Paid Family Leave Law, effective January 1, 2018.
Phased in over a four-year period with eight weeks of leave in 2018, ten in
2019, and ultimately twelve in 2021, the paid leave benefits will be funded
through employee and employer contributions to the state disability
insurance programs.

The law parallels the federal FMLA, but it does not cover leave for an
employee’s own disabling condition (which is covered by the existing
Disability Benefits Law) and it is broader in:

• Covering family members (who include domestic partners, grandparents, grandchildren);
• Defining qualifying serious health condition (an illness, injury, impairment or physical or mental condition that involves inpatient care, continuing treatment or continuing supervision by a health care provider);
• Eligibility (beginning after 26 weeks of continuous employment); and
• Coverage (extending to all New York employers).

In its first year, employees will be paid the lesser of 50 percent of their
average weekly wage or 50 percent of the statewide average weekly wage. The rates then increase by 5 percent intervals each year thereafter until they top out at 67 percent of average weekly wages in 2021. The Superintendent of Financial Services is empowered to delay the increases in wage subsidies for any given year based on the economic impact.

Paid Family Leave is presumed to run concurrently with FMLA unless an
employer’s policy states otherwise. Notably, paid leave benefits are not
available if the employee is collecting sick pay or paid time off from the
employer. This seems to preclude employers from offsetting part of the cost of paid time off by using the state paid leave benefit, and thereby differs from the law on short-term disability payments. Employers should watch if future regulations modify this restriction